Chapter 3: Paper Trails
The remaining hours of the night offered no sleep. Julian retreated to his study, locking the heavy mahogany doors behind him. He poured a glass of bourbon he had no intention of drinking and sat at his desk, staring blankly at the scattered financial reports illuminated by his desk lamp.
His grandfather had built this logistics empire from the ground up. Now, millions were quietly bleeding out of the corporate accounts, cleverly siphoned through dummy corporations and ghost vendors.
May you like
He had deeply loved Mara. When they married three years ago, she was a brilliant, warm presence in his high-stress life. But over the last six months, her phone was constantly locked, her schedule erratic, and her defensive outbursts frequent. The realization that his wife might be committing corporate espionage against his family was a poison that worked slowly, then all at once.
He needed concrete proof. And Clara, the quiet girl who practically lived in the shadows of the estate, was the only one who had seen Mara access the wall safe. The survival of hundreds of employees depended on breaking a terrified young woman's silence.
